Telegraph.co.uk – The City is staring into the abyss. If the proposed EU directive on hedge funds goes through, London will go the way of Bruges, Venice and Amsterdam: a once dominant financial entrepôt sidelined by more virile cities.
This, of course, is precisely what some in the EU want. I have lost count of how often I’ve heard voices raised in Brussels against London’s “jungle capitalism”. In the eyes of many Continental politicians, the Square Mile is parasitical: a lawless free city, whose lax regulations caused the financial crisis. They deeply resent the fact that 80 per cent of managed equity and hedge funds are based in London.
